THE PILGRIMS' ROAD ROCHESTER TO FAVERSHAM
The old road leaves Rochester to pass through Chatham, and is by no means delightful until it has left what Camden called "the best appointed arsenal the world ever saw." Chatham, indeed, is little else but a huge dockyard and a long and dirty street, once the Pilgrim's Way. There is, however, very little to detain us; only the Chapel of St Bartholomew to the south of the High Street is worth a visit for Bishop Gundulph's sake, for he founded it. Even here, however, only the eastern end is ancient. The parish church of Our Lady was for the most part rebuilt in 1788, but it still keeps a good Norman door to the south of the nave. It was here that Our Lady had in Chaucer's day a very famous shrine concerning which the following rather gruesome legend is told. The body of a man, no doubt a criminal or suicide, having been cast upon the beach in this parish, was buried here in the churchyard. Our Lady of Chatham, however, was offended thereby, and by night went Herself to the house of the clerk and awakened him. And when he would all trembling know wherefor She was come. She answered that near to Her shrine an unshriven and sinful person had been laid, which thing offended Her, for he did naught but grin in ghastly fashion. Therefore unless he were removed She Herself must withdraw from that place. The Clerk arose hurriedly we may be sure, and, going with Our Lady along towards the church, it happened that She grew weary and rested in a bush or tree by the wayside, and ever after this bush was green all the winter through. But the Clerk, going on, dug up the body and flung it back into the water from which it had so lately been drawn.
Now, as to this story, all I have to say of it is that I do not believe a word of it. Not because I am blinded by any sentimentalism of to-day, which, as in a child's story, brings all right for everyone in the end; but for this very cogent reason that of all created beings Our Lady is the most merciful, loving and tender—Refugium Peccatorum.
Also I know a better story. For it is said that one day Our Lord was walking with Sampietro in Paradise, as the Padrone may do with his Fattore, when after a while He said, not as complaining exactly but as stating a fact, "Sampietro, this place is going down!"
Here Sampietro, who is always impetuous and knew very well what He meant, dared to interrupt, "Il Santissimo can't blame me," said he huffily. "Il Santissimo does not suppose they all come in by the gate? Che Che!"
"Not come in by the gate, Sampietro. What do you mean?" said Our Lord. "If Il Santissimo will but step this way, round by these bushes," said Sampietro, "He shall see." And there sure enough He saw; for there was Our Lady drawing us all up helter-skelter, pell-mell, willy-nilly into Heaven in a great bucket, to our great gain and undeserved good. O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.
The road between Chatham and Sittingbourne might seem to be unquestionably that by which the pilgrims rode, and as certainly the Roman highway. It is, however, rather barren of mediaeval interest, little being left to us older than the change of religion. At Rainham we have a church, however, dedicated in honour of St Margaret, parts of which date from the thirteenth century, though in the main it is a Perpendicular building. Within are two ornaments of the late seventeenth century, and two brasses, one to William Bloor, who died in 1529, and the other to John Norden, who died in 1580, and to his four wives. As for William Bloor, there is a local story of some relation of his, Christopher Bloor by name, and of a nightly journey on a coach driven by a headless coachman beside whom sits a headless footman, and all drawn by headless horses, Christopher himself sitting within, his head in his hands. So much I heard, but I could not find out what it portended or referred to.
But it is not till we come into Newington that we find any sign or memory of St Thomas or the Pilgrimage. This village, however, became famous as a station for the pilgrims, because on his last journey from London to Canterbury, the great Archbishop here administered the rite of Confirmation. A cross was erected to commemorate this event, and there the pilgrims knelt to pray. But Newington in St Thomas's day was better known on account of a great scandal involving the name of the convent there. This convent was held of the king, of his manor of Middleton. We read that divers of the nuns, "being warped with a malicious desire of revenge, took advantage of the night and strangled the lady abbess, who was the object of their fury and passionate animosities, in her bed; and after, to conceal so execrable an assassination, threw her body into a pit, which afterwards contracted the traditional appellation of Nun-pit." [Footnote: Philipotts, "Villare Cantianum," quoted by Littlehales, op. cit. p. 27.] Now whether this tale be true or an invention to explain the queer name "Nun-pit" we shall never know, but as it happens we do know that the nuns were removed to the Isle of Sheppey and that St Thomas persuaded King Henry II. to establish at Newington a small house of seven secular canons to whom was given the whole manor. But curiously enough, one of these canons was presently found murdered at the hands of four of his brethren. Exactly where this convent was situated would seem to be doubtful. What evidence there is points to Nunfield Farm at Chesley, about a mile to the south of the high road.
Newington itself in its cherry-orchards is a pretty place enough to- day, with an interesting, if restored, church of Our Lady in part of the thirteenth, but mainly of the fourteenth century. It is a fine building with charming carved details and at least four brasses, one of the end of the fifteenth century (1488) to William Monde, two of the sixteenth century (1510 and 1581) and one of the year 1600. There is nothing, however, in the place to delay anyone for long, and the modern pilgrim will soon find himself once more on the great road.
On coming out of Newington such an one will find himself in about a mile at Key Street, where is the Fourwent Way, in other words the cross roads, where the highway from the Isle of Sheppey to Maidstone crosses the Pilgrims Way. Here of old stood a chapel of St Christopher or another, at which the pilgrims prayed, and remembering this, I too, at the cross roads, though there was no chapel, prayed in the words of the prayer which begins: